


Child Support

by pirateherokillian (Pirateherokillian)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 15:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15777186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pirateherokillian/pseuds/pirateherokillian
Summary: When taking in a stray cats turns out to be a lot more work than Emma intended.





	Child Support

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](http://pirateherokillian.tumblr.com/post/177312406523/imagine-your-otp) post on Tumblr. Written and posted not too long after to Tumblr directly, so there the story hasn't been beta'd. I apologize for any mistakes.

It all starts with Emma walking into the guest house she rents from her brother and sister-in-law to find her ten-year-old son Henry playing with the neighborhood’s stray cat. 

“What the hell, kid?” She mutters, eyeing the purring creature wearily as she kicks off her heels and chucks her keys on the kitchen counter. 

Henry comes rushing up to her, brown eyes wide. “She followed me home from school, mom…” He rests his hands and chin on the counter, blinking up at her all innocent-like. “Can she stay?”

Emma’s immediate instinct is to give him a hard ‘hell no’ and chuck the cat right back outside. But then the scrawny thing comes trotting over, rubbing up against her son’s legs and meowing, her green eyes as wide as her son’s as she looks up at him, and Emma knows it’s already a lost cause. 

“Yeah, fine…” She sighs and Henry whoops, reaching down to scoop the cat right up. “But you’re the one who’s telling your uncle and part of the vet bill to make sure this thing,” She points at the cat. “Isn’t infested with diseases is coming out of your allowance, got it?”

“Yeah, okay,” Henry mumbles distractedly as he carries his new friend back over to the couch. 

“Guess we’ll have to go and get some  _cat_ ,” She pauses after saying it allowed, rolling her eyes. “Supplies.”

Henry looks up from where he’s still cuddling the kitty, as innocent as ever. “Oh, I just gave her the rest of the turkey we had when I got home.”

Emma sighs, dropping her head and blindly reaching out for her keys as she trudges back towards the door.

—–

Nearly a hundred dollars she really shouldn’t have spent at the pet store later, Emma and Henry return home with all manner of cat bits and bobs. The essentials like food and litter and feeding bowls were relatively cheap, but Henry was convinced that their newest baby had been rescued from a destitute life and needed all the comforts they could afford. Like toys and beds and some ridiculous Star Wars ‘cat clothes’ that Henry had nearly screeched in excitement over finding - at least those had been on clearance. 

Of course the collar Henry had  _also_  insisted their new pet needed had put her out a whopping $15, but he just couldn’t live with getting her anything other than the one with the little skull and crossbones design stitched all over it.

“Tinkerbell.”

Emma looks up from where she’s busy trying to figure out what she’ll now have to skimp on to cover not only that particular pet store trip, but all the expenses that now came with being a pet owner. “What?”

“Her name is Tinkerbell.” Henry beams as Tink herself comes tinkling into the room, the overpriced collar strapped snuggly around her neck. 

Emma eyes the cat with mild exasperation as she plunks herself down right in the middle of the floor and thrusts her leg in the air, the tiny bell on the collar jingling away merrily as she licks at her butt. “Great.”

—–

The truth is, Tinkerbell isn’t all that bad. It takes some getting used to - both to the cat herself and the constantly ringing of that damn collar, but over time she settles in comfortably. She loves Henry to bits, which is reason enough to keep her around. But she also doesn’t seem to mind Emma’s company when it’s just the two of them on the weekends Henry is off with his dad. 

She has to admit, there’s something nice about having a rumbling little warm squish pressed up against your side when you’re working your way through a bottle of wine and watching crappy reality television. Makes the impact of just how alone she is the weekends without her kid a little less harsh.

—–

It doesn’t immediately register that Henry likes to let Tink take a stroll around the neighbor every so often the night she’s crossing from the main house back to hers and she hears the screeching and screaming from the next yard over. 

It doesn’t  _really_  kick in that she never actually did follow through on the appointment David recommended for getting Tinkerbell spayed until a shout comes over the fence following the ruckus.

“Bloody hell, Smee! Get off of her!”

“Shit!” Emma makes her way over to the gate that connects the two yards and hastily unlocks it, not caring too much that she’s now trespassing on another’s property. She heads straight for her brother’s neighbor, who is cursing and struggling to get who she assumes to be ‘Smee’ off of Tinkerbell. “Did he attack her?!”

The neighbor finally gets a firm hold on his cat and pulls him up by the scruff of the neck, holding his arm out away from him so the flailing mass doesn’t land any good scratches to his body. “In a manner of speaking…” He mutters as Emma squats down and scoops a now rolling Tinkerbell up into her arms. She winces as claws dig into the top of her shoulder.

“Swan, I thought you had taken that little harlot in.” The neighbor, Killian she now remembers from some brief encounters over the past year, turns on her with aggravation.

Emma turns Tinkerbell away from him in a sudden surge of protectiveness. “She’s not a harlot! And how the hell would you know that?”

Giving a roll of his eyes behind the hair hanging in his eyes, Killian lets Smee drop to the ground. The cat scampers off into the overgrown bushes lining Killian’s back porch. “Because your brother is quite chatty with his drunk tank usuals.”

The strong scent of rum hits Emma and she finally notices how unsteady Killian actually is without a struggling cat to hold his attention. In a flash, all their brief encounters, and the rumors around town about the man before her, flood her thoughts.

“You should’ve gotten her fixed.”

Despite now realizing exactly who and what exactly she’s dealing with, Emma can’t help but feel her defenses rise again. “And what excuse do you have, huh? Your little lothario seems to have all his bits still intact… kindred spirits, I’m guessing?” She eyes him up and down with mild disdain. 

Killian’s eyes go wide and Emma feels slightly bad at the wounded look that fills the hazy blue. But then it’s shuttered as fast it came and he’s given another eye roll and a dismissive little nod. “Just take that thing out of my bloody yard and you with it.” He mumbles before starting to stagger his way back towards his house. 

Emma feels her remorse over her previous words die. “How about you keep your cat’s prick away from  _my_  cat next time?” She shouts after him, earning a middle finger thrown over his right shoulder in response. Emma growls and turns on her heels, stomping her way back onto her brother’s property, muttering the whole way about asshole drunks who live next store.

—–

Any prayers she sends up to any gods listening about Tinkerbell  _not_ being knocked up go completely unanswered. It doesn’t take very long to notice that Tink is getting significantly round in the middle. She calls her brother over in a panic when Henry is yet again off with Neal for the weekend. It was one thing to take in one stray cat, a whole other for that cat to end up with five or six more of her running around. And as soon as Henry found out that Tinkerbell was expecting…

“Wait, how did this whole thing happen? I thought you had her spayed. I set up the appointment and everything…” David asks curiously as he eyes Tink playing with some toy mouse on Emma’s kitchen floor.

Emma winces and finally confesses to her brother that she never did get around to taking Tinkerbell to said appointment. Just as David is about to chastise her for it, she holds up her finger and cuts him off. “But your asshole neighbor also didn’t get his little shit fixed either, so… I’m only partially to blame here.”

David frowns. “Wait, Killian?”

“The one and only.” Emma grumbles, expression going sour. “Maybe you should go talk to  _him_ , the drunk prick, about proper pet owning. I’ve only had Tink a couple months and I’m still figuring things out! I know he’s been hollering at that mongrel of his since-”

“Since right after his wife passed away?” David filled in with his eyebrows raised. 

She was going to say since they had moved into the guest house a little over a year ago, but her mouth snaps shut and she sits back. There’s a sad look on her brother’s face and she’s not sure how much of it is for Killian, and how much of it is disappointment in her. 

“I’ll talk to him.” David sighs after the awkward silence stretches on too long. He pushes up from his stool and pockets his phone, clearly preparing to leave. “As for her,” He points at Tink. “She can come vacay for a couple months at the shelter when the babies are born until they’re ready for adoption.” He offers simply before leaning in and pressing a kiss to her cheek and heading for the door.

—–

Emma can’t help herself and goes to Mary Margaret to get the details on Killian a couple weeks later. It’s a little underhanded, manipulating her notoriously gossipy sister-in-law into spilling the details, but she really doesn’t know any other way. David obviously wasn’t going to tell her, and she certainly couldn’t show up on Killian’s doorstep demanding he explain himself…

So over a bottle or two of wine while David is with Henry at the movies seeing the latest super hero flick, Emma finally gets the full details on the man next door.

“He and his wife Milah were  _so_  welcoming when we first moved in,” Mary Margaret sighs wistfully, her face a little pink from the wine. “Always inviting us over to dinner, or happily coming over here. She was several years older than him-” She turns and vaguely gestures through the kitchen wall in the direction of Killian’s house. “The house was hers from a previous marriage. Apparently her ex-husband had been a real dick bag.”

Emma snorted at her sister’s choice of words, clearly brought on by her lack of inhibitions. “Seems she had a type.” She couldn’t help from saying, her own tongue feeling a little loose and a fire in her belly building.

Eyes going wide, Mary Margaret shook her head quickly. “Oh no, Killian was always such a gentlemen whenever we saw him! He and David got quite close in those early months. And he was so in love with Milah,” Her face droops with sadness and Emma takes a sip of wine as she prepares for what David had already referenced. “Loved her right up until a sudden heart attack took her a couple years ago.”

The fire in Emma’s belly suddenly feels like icy disgusted and she pushes her glass away a little. “Oh god, that’s…” Terrible. It’s truly terrible and she feels like an ass for letting her remembered emotions from the night with Tinkerbell fuel her pettiness. 

Mary Margaret nodded sadly and looked out the window towards the backyard and the guest house. “It really sucked all the life out of Killian. He stopped accepting invitations to come over.” She shrugged. “Stopped doing everything, really. Besides drink. He was a very sought after yacht captain when he first came here-” She sighed loudly and reached to pour more wine into her glass. “David’s done what he could to keep Killian at least from going completely under. Helped get him a job down at the docks that let’s him pay to keep his house. Makes sure he has a place to sleep when he does make his way down to the Rabbit Hole for his rum…”

“And Smee?” Emma asks quietly, thinking she might know where that’s leading as well.

Her sister smiles sadly again. “Milah had adopted him as a kitten a couple weeks before she passed.”

The rest of the night passes in a blur of more wine and less tragic gossip, but even as Emma pours herself into her bed later on that night after David helped get Henry to bed, she can’t stop herself from thinking about Killian, and how quickly she’d been to judge the clearly hurting man.

—–

He’s still a thought that’s circling around in her head when she’s not busy out on jobs or raising her son and his ever-growing feline companion a few weeks later when a knock comes at her door. Henry is tucked up in his room playing video games, so it’s Emma who has to get up from her sci-fi movie marathon to answer it. Tinkerbelle is waddling around her ankles as she pulls it open.

Her eyes widen for the brief moment Killian is in her sight. Then she’s stepping back in even more surprise as he thrusts a half-full bag of cat food, hastily and poorly taped over with packing tape, a sign scrawled with ‘child support’ across the front, into her line of sight.

“Figured this would work as an apology?” His disembodied voice from behind the bag says gruffly. 

Emma blinks, unsure what to do or say, and clearly it’s long enough for Killian to feel discouraged because the bag starts to lower to reveal an overtly scruffy and ashamed face on the other side. He looks dejected in a way that indicates he was pretty much expecting it, so when Emma steps forward and snatches the bag out of grasp, he freezes in uncertainty. 

“Sorry,” She mumbles, looking from him to the bag in her hand. “I just wasn’t expecting…”

Killian’s already ruddy skin flushes a little darker and he reaches up to rub at the back of his neck. “Yeah, David came and talked to me about what happened.” His red-rimmed blue eyes dropped to the porch under his boots. “I honestly didn’t really remember…” He shakes his head and swallows, squinting slightly as he looks up at her. “I’m also honestly  _really_ hungover right now and it’s just now setting in that this was bloody stupid as hell and I’m s-”

“You wanna come in for some coffee?” Emma blurts suddenly, catching him completely off guard. He stares at her in shock, his mouth a little slack. Admittedly, Emma feels a little shocked at the invite herself. But the more she stands there watching him, the more she feels like it’s the right choice. It also doesn’t hurt that, even with his disheveled and unkempt appearance, he’s a bit handsome. 

Killian continues to stare in shock and growing uncertainty and Emma feels a mix of embarrassment and boldness spur her into talking more. 

“Listen, this,” She holds the cat food up in emphasis. “Is more child support than my ex has given me for the  _actual_  kid we made.” Killian’s eyebrow suddenly quirks up in curiosity, his mouth closing in what she thinks might be a slight smirk, and Emma shrugs her shoulder. “Why don’t you come in and we can..” She shakes her head a little, looking past him towards the yard for a brief second before finding his blue eyes again. “Hash out the custody details over coffee and an Aliens movie marathon?”

Killian breaks her stare again, looking back to the porch. He seems to contemplate her offer a little before finally nodding and smiling for the first time that Emma has ever seen. “Aliens does seem an appropriate backdrop for cat discussions.”

Emma’s smile in return is small and shy, but she still steps back and gestures for him to come inside nonetheless. Killian offers to take the cat food from her as he passes. She hands it off to him and closes the door, taking a deep breath as he pauses at the end of the short hallway, waiting for her to lead the way. 

She lets the air out slowly and nods. “Okay, so I’m hoping you like it strong…”

As she moves down the hall to guide Killian deeper into her home, Tinkerbell’s collar jingles as she slowly meanders her way after the humans.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr as pirateherokillian, and Twitter as pirateherojones, if you'd like to chat!


End file.
